


to let me dangle (at a cruel angle)

by sweetoctopodes



Category: Archipelago (Webcomic), archipelago - Fandom
Genre: Angst, F/M, Friendship, Gen, Reunion
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-19
Updated: 2017-02-19
Packaged: 2018-09-25 15:41:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 977
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9827006
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sweetoctopodes/pseuds/sweetoctopodes
Summary: Somewhere on an island, familiar faces are spotted. Somewhere on an island, memories and hopes become reality. Somewhere on an island, Lucinda is alive.





	

**Author's Note:**

> For my darling belovedtwinflower. Here's something new in the Archipelago tag.

Knull’s heart seems to stop as he blinks and sees a shock of sandy blonde hair in the crowd. A wave of emotion races through him, primarily grief. He looks down at his shoes, and a passerby bumps into him.

“Watch where you’re going!”

Knull quickly scribbles an apology on his tablet, but odds are the man doesn’t even see it. Not many people pay attention to a mute raven boy, and those who do seem to look at him with scorn and derision. His time on his own has been...lonely, but good.

Until he sees a glimpse of  _ her _ . Or at least a memory of her. He knows how powerful memories and ideas are; he’s seen the power a single idea can wield, and he knows how the memories of love and happiness can keep others alive. He sighs, reminding himself that for Lucinda, those memories are the very thing that destroyed her. The thing that…

He looks back up in the spot he had originally seen the girl who looked like Lucinda. She’s facing away from him, but her build is even close to hers. This girl’s air is lighter, however, and Knull had never known Lucinda to have anything light about her. There’s a pang of sadness in his chest.

The thing that killed her.

If it was any sort of virtue that would be the end of Knull, it would be hope. He had so much hope for Lucinda. She saw herself as a vast space of loneliness, especially thanks to the Great Raven. She said she preferred it that way, but Knull had hoped that something could help her feel life and love again. She deserved to be happy. She deserved to be treated with respect. But all Han had done was use her, leave her, and ultimately destroy her. He saw her as a thing to be possessed, as a game to be won.

Knull hadn’t seen her that way. Not that he was necessarily better than Han because he treated her nicely, or that he thought she owed him anything like Han did. In all reality, Knull had just wanted a friend. Lucinda was the closest thing he found to a friend on Snow’s ship. But just because he wasn’t Han didn’t make him a man in need of growth, or a person who had done some unspeakable acts. The fact was, Lucinda had helped inspire bravery in him, when he had only ever been a coward.

Maybe if he had been less of a coward she would still be…

No. He can’t think that way.

The girl at the fish stand nods her head to the owner of the shop and turns. Knull freezes. Her left eye is consumed by the Raven. Her hair is longer, the air about her a bit lighter, but this girl doesn’t just  _ look _ like Lucinda. It  _ is  _ Lucinda. The resemblance is striking, enough for him to cast his doubts aside.

He goes to call out to her, briefly forgetting that he can’t. He reaches out his hand, mouth still calling for her, but his voice refusing to join him. Knull finally finds the strength in his legs and begins to move across the marketplace to reach her, but a large seranith carting a wheelbarrow full of cabbage crosses in front him. When the cart finally passes, he can no longer see her.

Lucinda.

* * *

She spots him long before he sees her. Lucinda supposes that she could (or perhaps should) find somewhere to scurry off and hide. But the fact of the matter is that she  _ wants _ to see him. Or maybe she wants him to see her.

Lucinda has been hiding for so long. It almost makes her weary if t weren’t for the necessity of survival. It’s easy to spot a raven (or former raven in her case) by their eye. Most people don’t trust ravens, and with good reason. Lucinda sighs as she gathers her things and quickly races out of Knull’s sight.

She hears the whisper of her raven in her head. Not the Great Raven, not anymore, but  _ her _ raven. The one that kept her alive, the one that found a new purpose after floating aimlessly in the ocean, the one that decided to try living and feeling. (In a way, Lucinda hates and resents her raven, if all else for the fact that it kept her alive.)

_ You miss him _ .

The raven isn’t wrong.

_ Why can’t we go say hi? He cared about you, more than anyone else. _

“That’s why I can’t see him,” whispers Lucinda softly so no one else can hear. A raven eyed girl talking to herself would be far too obvious even to the casual passerby that something is off.

_ And you cared about him _ .

“He was kind to me, yes.”

She feels the raven urging her to speak to her friend, to speak to the boy who always believed in her. Lucinda feels hot, angry tears running down her cheeks. Being away from Snow, Han, the abbey...it had been good for her, and yet she still refused to let herself feel. (Something her raven was telling her she should try.)

“I can’t risk feeling again. What if he hates me?” she says, her voice cracking slightly. She lowers her gaze. “What if he loves me?”

_ Courage, dear one. How will you know if you don’t try? Are you really that convinced that even a small gesture of friendship will break you? Or perhaps you really are too weak to try. _

Lucinda mentally curses her raven. It’s right, of course. Perhaps it’s spite, perhaps it’s sheer stubbornness, or perhaps it’s a deep longing of human connection echoing inside her. She steps up to the cart where Knull is examining what seems to be hair dye. She takes a deep breath.

“Hello, Knull.”


End file.
